The most popular user-interface paradigm in modern personal computing devices is the “desktop” paradigm, where information associated with work the user is performing on the computing device is centrally displayed, such as within one or more windows, and additional information relevant either to that work, or to the overall status of the computing device and the computer-executable instructions executing on the computing device is peripherally displayed. Such a “desktop” paradigm is meant to mirror a typical physical work desk, where documents associated with the work currently being performed are typically placed within the center of the desk, and the periphery of the desk comprises other tools or documents that may be referenced, though less frequently.
Information typically presented to a user within the periphery of a computing device's display can include notifications, such as the current time, the status of various aspects of the computing device, such as whether it is connected to a network or the current charge capacity of the computing device's battery, and notifications relevant to processes executing on the computing device, such as a notification that new hardware was detected, a malware scan is being performed, or other like notifications. Information typically presented to a user within the periphery of a computing device's display can also include indications of tasks, either that the user has already initiated, or that the user often uses. For example, such tasks can include visual representations of one or more processes or application programs that the user has already executed, or visual representations of one or more processes or application programs that the user often executes.
Many users of modern computing devices have multiple application programs and other processes executing simultaneously. Within each of these application programs or processes, furthermore, users may have caused the presentation of multiple individual windows or similar visual information containers, thereby potentially overcrowding the user interface being presented by the computing device. One mechanism that is utilized to address such overcrowding, especially by multiple windows that are all associated with a single process, such as an application program, is a tab-based user interface whereby, rather than presenting information to a user through multiple windows, a single window is utilized and the information within the window is controlled through the selection of “tabs”. More specifically, much like tabs in a notebook provide for easy access to tabbed information, the tabs in a tab-based interface enable a user to efficiently access content. Such content, which may have traditionally been displayed in a separate window, can now be hidden “behind” active content within one window, and can be efficiently accessed via a presented tab-based interface. However, because such a tab-based interface is presented within a single window, window-based organizational mechanisms do not apply to individual tabs, and instead apply to the overall window that contains all of the tabs. As a result, if a user wishes to interact with tabs or tabbed content, they must bring the process or application program providing such tabs and tabbed content to the forefront of the user interface being presented by the computing device.